Behold, Britney Spears Is Coming To The Tri-State Area in August

It's been some time now since Britney Spears was plucked from her pleasant Louisiana life and transformed into the world's foremost pop-robot. The seductive ...Baby One More Time came out twelve years ago, it's success crowning Britney as the prototypical, twenty-first century pop star. In the years between then and now, generations of pop stars have come and gone and Britney has managed to remain relevant by fully submitting herself to this role. And so while downtime has proven problematic for her -- barefooted bathroom, barbershop, hospital trips and all -- when there is money to be made, pop's top brass (Dr. Luke, will.i.am, Max Martin and the likes) are ushered in to make sure her albums are hits and while some sort of miracle-handlers remind her to smile and dance for the camera. She's again a star.

Such is the case with her seventh album, Femme Fatale, out today -- an album that is entirely "Britney Spears" but probably not really at all Britney's. Not that any of that matters, because for all intents and purposes (re: dance hits, more time with Britney Spears, etc.), it's pretty good. And you can bet that when she heads out on tour this summer with Enrique Inglesias, the costumes will be shiny and the dance numbers huge. She was built for this.